WBB: Iowa knocks off another ranked challenger

Doolittle leads rally, upset of No. 23 Michigan on the road

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan joined the ranks of West Virginia, Iowa State, Texas, Ohio State and Purdue on Sunday.

All were ranked when beaten by the University of Iowa women’s basketball team.

Sophomore Bethany Doolittle highlighted the latest performance, helping the Hawkeyes battle back from a 32-30 halftime deficit and beat the Wolverines, 63-5, in front of 2,607 at Crisler Arena.

It was just the second Big Ten loss for No. 23 Michigan.

“Bethany Doolittle came to play today,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said.

Iowa (16-5, 5-2) won its third in a row and has won two of three league road games this season.

Michigan fell to 16-4, 5-2.

“It was defense and it was composure,” Bluder said, pointing to Michigan’s lone field goal in the final seven minutes came with 10 seconds to play. “It gives us a Big Ten road win and Big Ten road wins are hard to come by, another top 25 win for us, and it gives us good momentum playing at Illinois on Thursday night.”

Doolittle scored a team- and career-high 19 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field and 1-of-1 from the line. She had four rebounds.

Doolittle scored five field goals in a span from the 7:26 mark of the second half until 1:45 remained. She also sprinkled in several big offensive rebounds during that stretch.

“My teammates were finding me open a lot in the zone they were playing,” Doolittle said. “It left a lot of gaps on the short corner which is primarily where I play.”

Iowa shot 46 percent from the field (23-of-50) and made 12-of-14 free throws.

Senior Jaime Printy added 14 points with five rebounds. She was 4-of-4 from the free throw line. Sophomore Samantha Logic scored 10 points with eight assists and six rebounds. Senior center Morgan Johnson pulled down a team-high seven rebounds to go with six points.

Michigan led 27-17 at the 4:51 mark of the first half and Iowa didn’t lead until Melissa Dixon drained a jump shot with 12:11 remaining to put the Hawkeyes up, 42-41.

Iowa made better than 60 percent of its field goals in the second half (14-of-23).

“Sam had two good steals that led to high-percentage layups,” Bluder said. “She had an unbelievable pass to Morgan, Jaime hit a big 3 for us from the corner.

“It’s funny because I really didn’t even realize we were shooting that well percentage-wise. Bethany got some big offensive rebounds for us at the end of the game that we brought the ball back out, we had good clock management in this game, it was great defensive effort in this game and smart basketball, very focused basketball, especially in the second half.”

Michigan’s Jenny Ryan led all scorers with 20 points.

(The University of Iowa’s sports information release contributed to this report.)